An anti-malware program aims to detect, prevent, and remove malicious code from executing on a computing device and creating unwanted consequences. Malware or malicious code may take the form of a computer virus, computer worm, spyware, adware, a Trojan horse, and so forth. The anti-malware program may scan every file whenever a file is created, opened, and closed. The file may be scanned against a database having hundreds of known malware programs.
An installation package is a set of files that is assembled in a particular format for installation onto a computing device. The installation package may include files, metadata, libraries, etc. When the files from an installation package are installed on a computing device, the anti-malware program typically scans each file in the installation package against the database of known malware programs to determine if any of the files contains a known malware program. The process of scanning each file may consume an enormous amount of time especially if the installation package contains a large number of files or the malware database contains a large number of known malware programs. A long scanning time slows down the installation of the package and degrades the overall system performance.